Outside?\u00a0 A very different story.<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/media.startribune.com\/smedia\/2007\/05\/10\/17\/727-3776866.doublewide.prod_affiliate.2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The area around the New Guthrie is a dreary, arid place; cold and cement-y in the winter, dry and hot in the summer.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0long been one of the most depressing parts of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
The Strib’s architecture beat reporter (for now), Linda Mack, points the finger:<\/p>\n
Stand in front of Spoonriver, the streetwise new restaurant facing the Guthrie Theater, and you’ll feel the problem. The cafe’s outdoor tables with their orange umbrellas are inviting, but what lines the street? Parking meters.<\/p>\n
No trees are allowed on this part of S. 2nd Street because most of the buildings are historic ones. Trees weren’t part of the original industrial landscape that the St. Anthony Falls Historic District protects, preservationists argue, so trees aren’t allowed today.<\/p>\n
That’s absurd. There weren’t sidewalks either when this area between the mills on 2nd Street and Washington Avenue was a giant rail yard. But there are sidewalks now, and people living in the mills and walking the streets. The city should foster neighborhoods that are as livable as possible, and there’s nothing that works better than trees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But…:<\/p>\n
In Minneapolis, the city’s Public Works Department holds more sway than the Planning Department. And despite Mayor Rybak’s push to turn Washington Avenue into a tree-lined boulevard, the nearby streets are wanting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In Minneapolis, bureaucracy trumps the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which is a shame, because it’d be nice to walk out of just about the coolest theater in the business onto a street that looks like something other than a Bloomington car lot sans <\/em>cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Especially since,\u00a0 y’know, that’s what the market is trying to do, <\/em>without any tax money needed in the process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love the new Guthrie.\u00a0 Oh, it’s disconcerting, and when you react to it – inside or out – you feel like you’re playing a part that’s been pretty well scripted out for you by some dweeby little metrosexual architect somewhere, as if you’re part of his artistic vision… …but at the end of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-geekery","category-minneapolis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}